Flights are getting cheaper this year, but prices vary depending on your destination. To figure out whether a flight is actually a good deal, Luiz Maykot, a data science analyst for Adobe, came up with a simple formula.

The formula is pretty straightforward: multiply the trip’s round-trip miles by $0.032, then add $230.

As MarketWatch explains, if you’re flying between NYC and LA, that’s 5,640 miles total. Plug that into the formula, and you get $410.48, which means anything below $410 (taxes and fees included) is a pretty good deal. For international flights, multiply the round-trip miles by $.08 and then add $200.

Maykot explains how he came up with the formula:

I calculated the average price paid by everyone in the data sample, based on how many days in advance they purchased their tickets (up to 300 days in advance). Then, I divided the average price for each day by the overall average price and did this across thousands and thousands of flights. I was left with a weighted average of the final curve.

Put simply, the number you crunch gives you a general idea of what the majority of flight prices have been in recent years. MarketWatch explains the formula in a little more detail and also includes a calculator to help you do the math, so check out the full post at the link below.

2016 Travel Report: The Story Behind the Numbers | Adobe via MarketWatch

Photo by rch850.

from Lifehacker